


Vinny is weak (in more ways than one)

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Vinny gets a life [10]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 12:49:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4263855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”</p><p>“No,” Thomas admits. “It’s probably not.”</p><p>“Do you need help packing?” she asks.</p><p>Thomas is a grownup, and he can pack without his mom.</p><p>“Yes please,” he says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vinny is weak (in more ways than one)

Thomas figured that it’d be inevitable, the Habs finding out, and then promptly laughing their asses off at him, but when he thought inevitable, he was hoping it’d at least wait until training camp.

But instead, the day Anton gets the keys, he snaps about a billion pictures of the empty place on his phone for some reason: “so we know what furniture to get, Vinny, _duh_.” They grab lunch after getting more keys cut, and Thomas puts the shiny new house key on his key ring right beside the Winnie the Pooh one.

“Should have got you Bambi or something, shit,” Anton says, sounding disappointed.

Thomas is well within his rights to give him the finger in response.

After lunch Thomas returns to his apartment to continue his half-hearted packing. He’s no good at it, and he doesn’t even know if he should bring everything. Like, do they need two sets of utensils? Well, yeah, because Anton’s suck. Two blenders? Probably, because he bets his is going to give up on him sooner rather than later. His parents usually help him pack, but he thinks it’d be a little sad if he begged them back down to Montreal because he doesn’t know how to grownup yet.

And he’d have to tell them he’s moving in with Anton, first. He’s been kind of putting that part off.

Joke’s on him, though, because his phone basically has a panic attack in his direction, and when he grabs for it, afraid some other massive thing has gone down, he finds out that Anton’s sent a couple pictures of the place to the Habs email group.

Carmen already responded with a _u bot a house w/o VINNY?! :O_.

Anton replied to it with _of course I bought it with Vinny, dipshit_ , which is the cause of his phone explosion.

He gets ten texts within a minute, all basically laughing at him. He doesn’t know if Anton’s getting the same ones, but probably. Thomas doesn’t reply to any of them.

Fourns must still be on the list, or else his teammates are all gossips, because he sends Thomas a text an hour later, _I leave you for ten minutes and look what happens._ It’s followed by a nicer sounding but probably equally condescending text from Chloe, just _oh honey._ He doesn’t like to think of what’s implied by that text, since even his parents knowing how he feels about Anton is kind of depressing, but he knows how it looks. More than a dozen Habs laughing at him is how it looks.

His mom is not on the mailing list, obviously, but when he tells her the next day, her response basically boils down to the same as Chloe’s, with an added, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“No,” Thomas admits. “It’s probably not.”

“Do you need help packing?” she asks.

Thomas is a grownup, and he can pack without his mom.

“Yes please,” he says.

His parents come down a few days later. Thomas and Anton are a little stuck on the furniture stuff -- the stuff from their apartments has their rooms and the living room covered, but there’s a big dining room that probably needs a legit table, and guest rooms that need beds, and Anton went crazy and practically emptied out the SAQ with stuff to put behind the bar, but they need stools and everything too. It’s very overwhelming. Thomas has never actually needed to fill an entire house before.

His mom goes shopping with them while his dad takes over packing his kitchen, after seeing the mess that Thomas made and shaking his head at him, all disappointed but not surprised. Thomas gets that look a lot. Fourns gives it to him when he looks longingly at the kid’s menu. Lapointe gives it to him when Thomas tries to run away from him. Even the twins give it to him, uncannily like their dad, when he’s too sore to play any of their high impact games. Anton doesn’t, not really. He just laughs at Thomas instead.

His mom’s been giving him these meaningful looks since she got in, but she’s nice to Anton, at least, so there’s no repeat of last summer. It’s not Anton’s fault that Thomas has no sense of self-preservation. Anton just wants to live with his bro, there’s nothing weird about that, except for all the ways Thomas is making it weird in his head. 

It’s Anton’s name on the deed, and Thomas kind of thought that he’d want final word on the furniture and stuff too. It’s his house, after all —Thomas is basically a roommate, since there’s no guarantee how long he’ll be sticking around. For all he knows he could be traded tomorrow, sent down to Hamilton at the start of the season. Anton apparently doesn’t see it that way, though, has dragged Thomas out on every single furniture trip, of which there have been many. Anton was always choosy about his clothes and stuff, while Thomas just found what fit him and bought three of it. Maybe Thomas should have realised Anton would be the same about filling his house. 

It’s not just that he’s taking Thomas along, though, it’s that he’s consulting Thomas on all of it. Anton had picked a dining room table early, and it was so tremendously fancy Thomas couldn’t imagine them ever eating at it, even with company. He didn’t say anything about that, but they’re still looking for a dining room table, so.

Having his mom along makes things a lot easier. She asked Anton his price range, which he replied to with a shrug, and then asked whether they were splitting the costs, which Anton replied to with an immediate, “No”, and then rolled his eyes as Thomas stuck his tongue out. After that, she basically systematically took them to what Thomas thinks is every single furniture store in Montreal, and some not even on the island. By the end of the second day, Thomas wants to sleep for twelve hours, Anton’s just blown tens of thousands of dollars, and he thinks, just maybe, they actually have a house. With stuff and everything.

By the time all their furniture’s been picked and set up for delivery, his dad’s finished packing up all his stuff, and they rent a van to bring Thomas’ stuff over. His parents give him kisses and escape Montreal before Thomas can enlist them in moving as well. Thomas had no idea how heavy his headboard was until he had to move it himself.

“I hate this,” he tells Anton breathlessly.

Anton looks unmoved. He isn’t even sweating, the jerk. “I’m telling Gagnon you need more upper body work.”

“Oh fuck off, I’m a goalie,” Thomas mumbles. "I need to face one-timers, not make them."

“What you are is not helping,” Anton says, and to be fair, he is holding the thing at least a foot higher than Thomas is. Thomas regrets having a bedroom on the second floor. The stairs intimidate him. He has no idea how they’re going to avoid scraping all the paint off the walls.

“C’mon, Tommy,” Anton says. “We get your room set up and then we only have my room and the living room to go.”

Thomas whines.

“And then the dining room and the basement tomorrow,” Anton says idly. “And the kitchen I think.”

“If you’re trying to make me cry, it’s working,” Thomas says. 

Anton smiles brightly at him. 

It takes days to bring things to some kind of order, and Thomas does consider crying a few times, especially when he hammers his thumb and Anton laughs at him for five minutes while he holds it under the tap and mumbles apologies to it. They’re still missing things — not all the rooms have curtains, and the adventure of trying to hang curtains in the living room went badly enough they solemnly agreed on getting a contractor to do it. Their fridge is completely empty, and grocery shopping may also make Thomas cry at this point, so they’ve been living on delivery. 

Anton, for all his mockery of Thomas being weak, has been sleeping on the couch, since he’s too exhausted to put sheets on his bed. He claims he just felt like it, but he’s got a bare mattress and sleepy eyes. Thomas has him figured out.

None of this stops Anton from showing up in his room at six-thirty in the morning. “Come jogging with me,” he says.

Thomas rolls over and puts his pillow over his head. It’s snatched away from him in an instant. “We haven’t done any training in the last few days,” Anton says. 

“Then why does my entire body hurt,” Thomas mumbles into his mattress.

“Because you clearly need to use the weight bench more,” Anton says. “C’mon, Vinny, it’ll be too hot in an hour.”

“Go ‘way,” Thomas mutters. Anton tugs his sheets away too. Thomas curls protectively around himself and shields his eyes right before Anton pulls his curtains open. It’s painfully bright anyway.

“I hate you, why did I move in with you,” Thomas asks, kind of rhetorically. For him, at least. Anton slaps his side stingingly.

Thomas opens one eye. Anton’s hovering over him, looking annoyingly awake. 

“You jog alone, I’ll make breakfast for when you come back,” Thomas bargains.

Anton looks considering. “Deal,” he says, leaving the room, and Thomas considers that a winning deal that’ll buy him at least another twenty minutes of sleep until he realises there’s no food in the entire house, except maybe some leftovers from last night’s dinner. He bets Anton hadn’t forgotten that. 

“No,” Thomas whines to himself, but gets out of bed to go for a run to Shoppers. He hopes he doesn’t run into Anton on the way, he’ll be insufferably smug all day. 

Anton’s waiting on the porch with crossed arms and a smirk.

“Mon Dieu, you are the worst,” Thomas says.

“Come jogging with me,” Anton says. 

Resistance is clearly futile. Thomas goes jogging with him.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr!](http://youcouldmakealife.tumblr.com)


End file.
